I've been lurking here for a while but tonight I just feel the need to say hello.
About four years ago, I found out that my best friend is poly. I was blown away. I didn't know there was such a thing as polyamory, and I'd been feeling so guilty over various attractions and longings outside my marriage, thinking there was something wrong with me for having other feelings when I love my husband (I'll call him RugbyMan) so much. Suddenly my best friend and her husband were telling me that this is normal and okay, that I'm not messed up. RugbyMan seemed to think this was cool the night we found out (we'd all been drinking) but the next morning that was all gone and no, poly was not going to be an option for us.
I've tried talking to him about it again a couple of times over the last four years but every time it's no, and squick, and if you love me why would you need to get it on with someone else, and our marriage would be over if that happened, and let's not talk about it. So that's that.
So I feel poly and everything I have read about it feels so right. And I can live with sexual monogamy obviously (been with RugbyMan 16 years now), but I can't help the emotional connections and achy thoughts and longings that just seem to happen, and the horrible guilt and pain that comes with that. I'm not strong enough or unselfish enough to abandon a friendship when it shifts into something deeper for me, so I just hide my feelings from everyone and swing between secret rapture at any contact with my friend-crush and horror at what's going on inside me.
My best friend tells me I'm normal and okay, and reading this forum helps too, but it's still hard.
Kella
PS. I have always been totally into reading Robert Heinlein, Anne McCaffrey, Jacqueline Carey... Shane by Jack Schaefer was one of my favourite books way back in high school. I never understood why until this whole poly thing hit me...
About four years ago, I found out that my best friend is poly. I was blown away. I didn't know there was such a thing as polyamory, and I'd been feeling so guilty over various attractions and longings outside my marriage, thinking there was something wrong with me for having other feelings when I love my husband (I'll call him RugbyMan) so much. Suddenly my best friend and her husband were telling me that this is normal and okay, that I'm not messed up. RugbyMan seemed to think this was cool the night we found out (we'd all been drinking) but the next morning that was all gone and no, poly was not going to be an option for us.
I've tried talking to him about it again a couple of times over the last four years but every time it's no, and squick, and if you love me why would you need to get it on with someone else, and our marriage would be over if that happened, and let's not talk about it. So that's that.
So I feel poly and everything I have read about it feels so right. And I can live with sexual monogamy obviously (been with RugbyMan 16 years now), but I can't help the emotional connections and achy thoughts and longings that just seem to happen, and the horrible guilt and pain that comes with that. I'm not strong enough or unselfish enough to abandon a friendship when it shifts into something deeper for me, so I just hide my feelings from everyone and swing between secret rapture at any contact with my friend-crush and horror at what's going on inside me.
My best friend tells me I'm normal and okay, and reading this forum helps too, but it's still hard.
Kella
PS. I have always been totally into reading Robert Heinlein, Anne McCaffrey, Jacqueline Carey... Shane by Jack Schaefer was one of my favourite books way back in high school. I never understood why until this whole poly thing hit me...